A towering cloud of volcanic ash from the erupting Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland has spread across much of northern Europe. Not only is it causing substantial flooding in Iceland due to the melting glacier, but it’s causing the cancellation of the thousands of flights across Europe. Air traffic officials said that they cannot say when the airspace will be clear enough to fly again.

GeoEye have added high-resolution imagery from March 31st of the actual eruption site at Eyjafjallajoekull to the GeoEye Featured Imagery layer in Google Earth. But it takes a few steps to get there, to access it:  Open Google Earth, open the More category in the Layers panel, and turn on GeoEye Featured Imagery. Then search for Iceland, click on the GeoEye logo at the south end of the island, and then click “View Full Resolution Image in Google Earth” in the window that pops up.

System MODIS Rapid Response NASA also has collected a satellite image, showing the site of the eruption expelled into the air a huge cloud of ash heading to Europe – and consequently on the main airways used daily by thousands of planes.

This image has been made available for download in Google Earth, you can download the KML file yourself . Be aware that it’s a very large image and could take a minute or so to load.